Research

Our research program focuses on people with Autism/Asperger syndrome who reached the age of adulthood.

You hear a great deal about children with autism, but not so much about adults. In fact, autism starts to be noticed in childhood, but it is not a disorder of childhood. Instead it is a disorder of development.

Autism has to be seen not just as a snapshot. Since it is a disorder that affects all of mental development, symptoms will, necessarily, look very different at different ages. Certain features do not become apparent until later, others disappear with time. In fact the changes are huge. Autism affects development, and in turn, development affects autism.

Our research program investigates the neural underpinnings of human social behavior. We are pursuing questions such as:

• How do we recognize emotion from facial expressions?
• How do we make social judgments about other people?
• How do we move our eyes when looking at people's face?
• How do we move our eyes when talking with someone?
• How do we recognize people's intentions when they interact with each other?
• How do we recognize people's emotions when they interact with each other?
• What brain areas are involved when people see and feel a caress?
• What brain areas are connected when we pay attention to visual and auditory social stimuli?
• What brain areas are connected when we imagine people and when we look at their faces?